Updates
25 March 2023, 12:15
It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?
This thing has lied dormant for, three years, maybe?
And why resuscitate it now? I’m not really sure. I stumbled back onto it and read some of it. And whilst it seems like it was written by two or three totally different and alien people, it did stir up juices and a want in me to write again. The well where I’ve drawn inspiration from has filled to capacity, and for a long while, I COULDN’T write about what was happening and what was banging around my cranium. Whether things in my life prevented me from writing or things in general were so overwhelming, I had lost that part of me that thought this was a viable platform for me to be on, writing just didn’t happen. Lots of DRINKING did. But the writing, not so much.
But, I’m back and dipping my toe back into this.
Rereading a bunch of this, I saw that 2018ish was a very divorce/dingus centric year. It was time of real growth, real backslides and where I was trying to decide if I was a strong woman, a smart woman, or even one capable of being able to navigate anything anymore. But then I read more. I once was pretty funny. I once was pretty insightful. I once was pretty maudlin. I once was pretty joyous. I once was a lot of things, and writing was the evidence of that. I’m probably all these things still, but… I don’t have the documentation of it that a vanity blog provides.
There is just a lot that happened and is still happening. Rehashing a bunch of the last three years seems pointless to me, but I will update on the milestones and events I found meaningful and of note.
Lordy. And Happy Holidays 2021 and 2022. Happy New Year 2022 and 2023. A bullet list of flotsam and jetsum of the past couple-three years…
• EASLEY. The very worst pain I have felt since the death of Ken happened in 2020. It still hurts almost unbearably if I think of her more than a couple minutes, but I’m no longer sobbing in my soup, and the guilt of her death has become more of a low level murmur that plays in my head. I can ignore it now for the most part. I still can’t take her picture down, but the stain in the road from her death is almost gone, and I stopped building little memorials to her on the side of the street. So. Yeah. That’s a tremendously big brick I will carry from now on in my existential wheelbarrow, and if that’s the cost of having her in my life, I will gladly carry a hundred bricks because I was THAT grateful for that dog. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to write a whole entry on her death, and I pretty much covered it all in the facebook posts of the time. Where I laid ripped open and naked – I never felt such pain and loss. But again, if that was the cost of having her in my life for that little bit, it was worth it.
• WORK. Just what the flippity fuck fuck. I went from the magazine to the fake weedery now to the juvenile boot camp, and the inane and ignorant fuckery just grew exponentially with each position. I really liked the work that I did, but the management, not so much. At fake weed central I was downsized because they weren’t very good businessmen. The were paid three times as much as I, and couldn’t keep their company from approaching uncomfortably close to bankruptcy. I did great work and had a good time most of the time. But in the end, management proved to be too stupid to live, and the only reason they have a business is the blessings of position, gender and privilege that allows old white dudes to be mediocre and still have a good life. Then, I bounced to a interesting little covid gig which was fun and surreal. Short lived and unstructured, that little bit was a swirl of part-timery that kept me afloat. I ended up landing a position at a military academy for at risk youth. I am a full fledged professional photographer now, as well as all that other shit I do. Working at this job, I was more than a little trepidatious. The things I am the most uncomfortable with – marketing, the military and kids – all rolled up into a big ball of instutionalized dysfunction. It is the very definition of a fish rotting from the head down. I can only describe it as an ambulance with some major mechanical malfunctions. Only a few parts work, it barely can keep on the road, and its correct functioning is critical. I thought it would just be a job, I could take dah pictures and then go dah fuck home. But the kids. The kids who are damaged and at risk, and experience trauma, violence, abuse etc. have gotten to me. I have been through a complete class that graduated and about halfway into the next and the best thing about my job are these kids. They got problems. In the biggest way possible. And its a system that is one, if they graduate and be successful, its in SPITE of the academy and not because of it. There are the little people that work three times as hard as they should to make up for the shortcomings of leadership that is failing them and the kids. I have never been so angry at times, and ethically compromised at times, as I ever been working for this place. Not sure what I should do. I’m just hanging in there. It puts into sharp relief the realization that I do not have the youth nor the strength to really tilt at this particular windmill for any length of time. This I just don’t know about. We’ll see. I really have done the best work I ever had at the academy, though. And had some of the more profound experiences there, too. And I see more than a few kids thrive and succeed their circumstances because of this place. I see them take the reigns of their future and I KNOW they will succeed with the tools and skills we tried to give them. So. There’s that. So yah. FUCK.
• DOGS. I have many, many dogs. But you all knew that. After Easley died, I gained Lucy and Buddy. And now…. Red. A large horse of a dog. The sweetest camel sized dog you’ll ever find. He fit really easily into the fold and I had him initially to save him from a psychopath who threatened to shoot it, and then turned it out onto the street. I can’t NOT take him in. I can’t NOT give him a better life or at least try to find him as good a home as I can. But, there’s not many out there that want a dog the size of a cow and that eats more than the other three combined. And, as a treat, I think his presence has trigger the eating disorders of the Hurley and Lucy. They eat so he can’t. Speaking of Hurley, if you ever have the option of putting your psycho dog on prozac, give it a try. I should have done it so much earlier in his life. He’s a changed dog. Instead of stressed, aggressive, anxiety ridden, and uncomfortable, the crazy pills have made him happy and playful. He no longer sits in rooms and cries alone. He no longer feels uncontrollably threatened by other dogs. He no longer causes hideous and terrible dog fights that send me to the ER to get stitched up. I don’t know if it was the drugs or some changes in how we dealt with him and his issues, but we didn’t change our behavior THAT much and the metamorphosis of this dog has got to be, at least in part, due to the prozac. I’m so happy about that, it brings me to tears. He seems to be truly happy and comfortable in his own skin now. He close to the end of his days and I want his life to be the best possible one he could have while he’s with me (love you, Fattie).
• POOKIEMAN. Yup. It will be 5 years together come June. It’s been ups and downs and craziness and calm. I can’t tell you what all goes into this cauldron that is him, but he is better than he was, and continues to be better as a person with each day he has under his belt. There are somethings that will just BE like what it is, so I’ve decided to pick the battles I can win, and try to deal with the other things as best I can. One thing is, being in this relationship, I’ve come to realize, that I am a good person who tries her best. I’ve had so many people tell me I’m lacking in almost every area possible. But I’m not. I do the best with what I got.
• ADULTING. Yup. It all sucks. It feels like you get ahead but then the unforeseen and the unfortunate will just drag you back a few steps. Still working on it. Still trying to pay the piper, avoid the reaper, and maybe be able to buy a camera or some new underpants. I think I’m relatively successful in avoiding failure. Still want a house. Still want to be able to not be homeless. And even one step closer in deciding to get a check up by some sham doctor, even though he’ll find some incurable brain rot and/or progressive butt cancer going on. Or worms. Maybe I have worms. I don’t know. So much could be wrong with me, its got me hesitant to find out what. But. I have made a couple steps toward that inevitable hell trip to see some bone shaker to find out that I have some sort of plague or condition that I can’t do anything about.
• WRITING. I want to do this more. I have MUCH anger and MUCH funny to pen and, from experience, those two in combination have serve me well and I have created some hella great content from that.
• BASS. The evil in the world has conspired to cease the production of Bass Pale Ale. I am more than distraught over this. It’s the only beer that I don’t make the schrunchy ick-face on that initial first swig. It’s the best beer in the universe, I have many memories tied to it, and its gone now. FUDGE. I’m going to have to change the beer fund logo. Maybe to a camera. Maybe a dog vet bill. Who knows. My life is ending up to be a giant GoFundMe campaign anyway, and now I have no really great beer to drink as I contemplate my belly button on the porch in the summertime.
Anywho. Nice to be back. I hope to write better than this. It will take me a few practice swings to get it going. But. Yeah. I missed this. I missed yah too.
